This gave me a big grin!

Well put revans!
Trust me myrkul, most early adopters called it jealous whining the first time around!

Hey revans, nice post. I generally argue that your conclusion will prevent its own cause. But the point is really the same.

I started a similar thread a couple of years back. I think I got a little more support than you did. It's a shame to see that sort of critical thinking has faded.

If you are interested...
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=48521.0

So it is! Been away too long and typed to late.


Transaction validation is absolutely essential and critical. However, it has nothing to do with the so-called "mining" calculations. In fact the trial and error process of calculating hashes cannot even begin until each transaction in a trial block has been validated. That is the necessary work to prevent a double spend.

All of these validations are done redundantly by each peer. The individual results are never compared. To avoid the combinatorial explosion of comparing the work process of each peer and arguing over a consensus about which transaction actually took place in a given 10 minute period... Satoshi in his brilliance (not sarcastic! real brilliance!)... chose to just throw dice and pick one of the nodes completely arbitrarily.

This means that each block doesn't actually even try to represent EVERY valid transaction that happened in a 10 minute period. Instead it contains the transactions that were declared by random fiat to have happened. That is why there are "mining-only" blocks in the list that contain zero other transactions even though  every other validating peer knows transactions took place during that period. That is hardly necessary to prevent double spends.


If no one did anything the block generation difficulty would fall back to the level that a dozen-ish exchanges were willing to spend hashing. But even that is not necessary.

Things are not as they were in the beginning. Satoshi solved a "philosophical problem." In a world WITHOUT super-peers how do you 1) reach consensus among anonymous peers 2) build a distributed clock 3) allocate initial coins 4) promote bitcoin. He created a brilliant solution to a hard philosophical problem.

Today, bitcoin exists with non-anonymous super-peers. We call them exchanges. Exchanges are already receiving broadcasts of every transaction. They don't have to build blocks to validate transactions, they all get them first-hand in order. Reaching consensus among a dozen non-anonymous peers is technically trivial and requires no advanced philosophy at all!

Do I now? Perhaps you should try thinking beyond the press releases.
In the beginning there were no miners. Just peers. Everyone validated every transaction and each hoped that their block be blessed by randomness.

Now people are ordering special ASIC chips that don't even validate transactions. They simply compute hashes. That is superfluous.

I have no formal economics knowledge. But I have decades of programming knowledge. Most of your criticisms have been made before. They will be made again long after you've given up trying to make the point. :-)


Yes, that is quite plausible if bitcoin ever gets wide adoption. Think of how many transactions a billion people make in a 20 minute period. Then imagine them all as peers validating every transaction. Each of those transactions has to be transmitted a billion times to be validated.

Which brings me to Red's axiom number 1:
Bitcoin is a peer to peer system. But you are not a peer.

Most mining pool participants don't validate a single transaction. They wouldn't have a clue if others were allowing bogus transactions into the block lists. Even if you try to run your individual node as a peer validating every transaction, you actually have ZERO effect on the bitcoin transaction graph until you actually win the block generation lottery.


It's bad for a lot more reasons than you mention. But you are correct in pointing out that bitcoin's adoption will be limited by its monetary policy.

Which brings me to Red's axiom number 2:
Few here care that the finite number of Bitcoins is a flaw. They consider it a feature.

There are several good threads on this subject going back four years. Check my post history if you're interested.


Curiously, from an economic point of view, mining pools are a red herring.
Currently more then half of all total bitcoins (11 mil out of 21 mil) are already generated.
http://blockchain.info/charts/total-bitcoins
If we doubled all existing bitcoins in place today we could be done with all the "mining" once and for all and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING would change. Easier yet, we could just stop generating all new bitcoins and continue on with the coins that currently exist. There is more than enough "satoshi" units in existence then we'll ever need. (According to bitcoin standard logic)

Which brings me to Red's axiom number 3:
Mining is just a needlessly expensive way to generate a random number roughly every 20 minutes.

Yes, I see the beauty of what satoshi did as a promotional mechanism. But other than that it no longer serves a necessary purpose. I can expand on distributed random number generation and distributed clocks if you are interested.

Which brings me to Red's axiom number 4:
Mining pools are not peers either.

If all miners and their peers quit tomorrow, nothing catastrophic would happen. Bitcoin transactions would continue to be validated the block chain would not fork. Bitcoin life would continue as usual.
    11,000,000 BTC * $100/BTC = 1.1 BILLION Dollars!!!
That's a lot of incentive for the ACTUAL PEERS to prevent block chain forking.


You propose generating an unbounded number of coins but you base generation on hashing power. I agree with your unbounded number of coins but the hashing logic is a red herring. I can point you to more threads if you are interested.

----

Oh yeah, before someone asks, "But who will stop the chain from forking without ever expanding hashing power?"
The answer is: Gavin and his coding team in conjunction with the bitcoin exchanges.

Which brings me to Red's axiom number 5:
Bitcoin exchanges are the only true bitcoin peers. Everyone else get over yourselves.

There already exist multiple "bitcoin to fiat" exchanges. Every exchange must always operate on the same bitcoin block chain. They can NEVER be forked apart. It is economically infeasible.

Any exchange that allowed itself to be forked from the others would in reality GIVE AWAY 1.1 billion free dollars in free BTC. Existing BTC owners could cash out their BTC on the forked exchange and while still continuing to own them on the dominant chain. POOF! instant bankrupt exchange. No more forked exchange.

The same holds true for everyone else as well. If a pot dealer on silk road allows himself to be forked from the dominant exchange branch, he in effect GIVES AWAY 1.1 billion free dollars of pot.

Which brings me to Red's final axiom. Number 6:
Bitcoin exchanges are the only entities that MUST check every transaction. Everyone else is redundant.

Exchanges must guarantee transactions EVEN if they don't benefit from "mining" new coins or benefit from collecting "transaction fees". Guaranteeing transactions is their WHOLE BUSINESS! They are public entities. If they allowed external "hashing wars" to unroll previously completed transactions REAL LIFE lawyers and police would round them up.

QED: All exchanges and the bitcoin programmers WILL ALWAYS work together in an orderly fashion to prevent block chain forking. It has happened before. It will happen again.

All the other machinations are just for show.

chris200x9, What you write is actually quite logical and sound. I said the same thing when BTC was 5 to the dollar. What you'll find however is bitcointalk is not the forum to discuss such topics. Try for a little while and you'll run away screaming like the rest of us.

Is is worth reading? Maybe worth rapidsharing?

Wow that blog disappeared fast!

This Krivit guy is an interesting character. Not really sure what to make of him. But that is neither here nor there. This is the part I found interesting from the above blog.


He goes on to link some other news and/or posts, that seem interesting.

http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/09/28/nasa-advances-evaluation-of-piantelli’s-lenr-research/
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/37/Report2-372-EnergyCatalyzerScientificCommunicationAndEthicsIssues.shtml
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/Piantelli/PiantelliGroupPapers.shtml


Now I really don't want to get into the question of whether or not Rossi stole Piantelli's work. The question I have is much more basic.

Is there something there worth stealing?

Yes, there is free care available to every American. However, not in an analogous way to how Europeans use that term. In the US this level of care was created as a safety net for "the poor". However, without attempting to sound too sarcastic, the group called "the poor" has a very low barrier to entry.

I know plenty of folks from upper-middle class families who decided to rebel or otherwise become dysfunctional. They simply go down to the county agencies and declared themselves "in need" of assistance. There is no judgment rendered about why your "wealthy" family would choose not to help you. Nor is there judgement about why they might choose to become dysfunctional. The British have a term called "going on the dole" which carries similar connotations to what I describe above.

So these programs are not entirely free in the European sense. It requires you to declare yourself as being "in need". Some would say whose in these programs are required to pay with their dignity. Rather than strict regulation, a dignity barrier keeps these programs from growing exponentially. Interestingly, many states have extensive advertising and out-reach programs to try and convince "needy" people to sign up for these programs.

As for the programs themselves, Medicaid is the most commonly known outside of the US. However there are a multitude of state and locally managed programs in every jurisdiction. Originally these started with "county hospitals" and emergency rooms like you mentioned. However, that mechanism of service is needlessly costly and generally silly. As such the programs expanded away from the hospitals to county and community "clinics" that serve the same need. Keep in mind that these programs only start the process, they also arrange many medical procedures outside of their programs. These extended procedures are often provided pro-bono by private doctors and for-profit hospitals. (Or maybe for tax write offs. I don't judge motivations. I just watch care happening.)

As others have already pointed out, every child qualifies automatically. Mothers qualify automatically as well. This does provide preventative care, vaccinations, checkups, and especially pre-natal care. Even illegal aliens qualify. Where I live county clinics make every announcement in both English and Spanish. If you sat in the clinic you would be proud of how "progressive" this all seems. The biggest obvious "gap" though is in automatic coverage of working age males, especially the white ones. These folks are expected to take care of themselves. If they can't they are expected to ask for help before receiving benefits. They can qualify of course, however, society tends to charge them a lot in dignity for doing so.

---

The other tiers of health care are "Medicare Insurance", "Private Medical Insurance", and "Self Pay".

Curiously, those who demand the absolute best care aspire to pay for it themselves. *The Rich* never ask, "what is the best insurance?" That question seems entirely silly to them. Obviously, the best care is what they need (or demand) at that moment. Optimal care means, care unconstrained by others who would have them receive less.

---

NOTE: In no way am I declaring our current system as optimal. I'm not even declaring it better than anyone else's system. But before we can improve it, we must understand what it currently is and how it got to be that way. That helps us see what could make it better, and what has already made it worse.

I'm pretty sure I already acknowledged the payment system was horribly inefficient. However, we pay that 2 or 3x you refer to for health care, not for insurance coverage. People get care, whether they are covered or not.



I can only presume you live in one of those six countries. Otherwise your argument about quality of care would be moot. Which one?



The point wasn't of scale. The point was our "costs" you keep referring to include paying for free healthcare for illegal immigrant populations the size of the countries you are referring to. But you knew that. We are obviously such bastards that way.



We have universal care in Massachusetts. The other 49 haven't expressed interest. But if it works out there others may take notice. Interestingly the folks in Massachusetts were pretty strongly against the latest federal plan.



We eat more then you smoke. And curiously, smoking seems to kill people less expensively than obesity. (tongue in cheek)

But curiously, have you looked at our birthrates by demographic group? Unlike Europeans that simply don't breed at all. In the US the poor out breed the rich by quite some margin. And if you saw the kids you would see that many are indeed born fat or at least get that way remarkably quickly.

But even so you may find that is not such a scandal as you are led to believe. Cool Graph The lines are actually all pretty close together. If you figure that many of our births come from recent Mexican immigrants, the numbers start to make a little more sense.

By the way, I'm quite certain you will find we die in more car crashes (because we drive 10 fold more than Europeans). We also have many different types of "death by misadventure". Sometimes crazy people drown their kids in cars. Other times teenagers shoot each other. Mostly this excess mortality isn't a result of a poor medical care. It's because lots of us are a bit less "civilized" then in other countries.



I'm also pretty happy with my healthcare system, my costs, and the results I receive. I wouldn't switch places with anyone. However, I don't remember calling anything socialist.

You seem to take things a little more defensively than I intended. I'm not calling your system bad. Indeed, I don't even know what system you use. I'm saying the US system doesn't operate as it is perceived to operate from afar.

However, no matter what system you use, no one should ever *be required* to give up the right to decide exactly what level of care they want to receive. Sometimes, it really matters. Sometimes those decisions are life and death.

Some countries with universal health care do require people to relinquish these rights. Canada prefers one tier for everyone. The UK is reputed to make it difficult to switch counties for care. (I am not an expert on foreign care) Most countries, however, do not require one size fits all healthcare. Most countries allow people to buy "supplemental" insurance or to pay for extra services beyond those automatically afforded to others. However, being responsible for your own additional medical services doesn't make you evil.

The US fits into this second category. We call this optional supplemental insurance, "medical insurance" because the initial tier requires no insurance at all. Indeed the US does have a level of care afforded to everyone without cost. We don't call it "insurance" though. It is called mandatory care. Many people want the bar for mandatory care to be set higher but indeed there is a bar.

Outside of emergencies, often times to receive this free level of care, you are required to stand in lines with people you wouldn't normally associate with. People often find this demeaning. They argue the bar should be set higher so they don't have to associate themselves with such people. To avoid having to be associated with mandatory care, or to avoid having to pay for their own care or to avoid purchasing insurance, many people choose to go to regular for-profit medical providers then just don't pay their bills. This drives for-profit cost up for those that do want to pay.

It is really an interesting statistic depending on how you spin it. That means 50 million people tend to get healthcare without paying anything. Sometimes it comes from government run health facilities. Often times they get care and just decide not to pay the bills. We have no debtor's prisons for such things. (Nor am I suggesting that we should)

So if you are suggesting that more people in the use should be responsible for paying for their healthcare costs, I couldn't agree more. It would bring the overhead down substantially for those now paying the bills. However, nothing proposed so far aims to make this imbalance better. That is the really sad thing.



Out of 191 countries on the planet. "The United States ranked last when compared to six other countries -- Britain, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, the Commonwealth Fund report found."

Come on New Zealand had 4 million people. The Netherlands has 16 million. California and the US are pushing those respective numbers in illegal immigrants alone.


But the study is clear about one thing, we are fat and nobody likes to go to the doctor. We are fat because we are very efficient and productive in feeding ourselves. Even our poor are fat. Our food tends to be good, cheep, and restaurant service is fast. Even Europeans get fat when they come here. Should we take better care of ourselves? Yes we should.



I'm pretty much all over these forums saying health insurance is the cause of our problems not the solution. Employer based health insurance is the stupidest concept of them all. I'm quite convinced that nobody should have health insurance. I am however in favor of people receiving proper health CARE. (Feel free to review my other posts on this subject)

Keep in mind all of my examples happened in the US. None required extra costs. Most of them involve medicare (public healthcare).

I had a friend who was shot in the face. (Not accidentally.) It was treated completely free including follow up plastic surgery to remove a dimple. If I lined up my friends you could not tell who it was. Again, this was done 100% free for someone who has never worked a day in their life. No insurance, no co-pays, no judgement, no threats of lawsuits, no bill collectors. It just gets done.

Somehow the rest of the world has gotten the view that the US has some kind of 3rd world healthcare. It is simply not the case. We have expensive healthcare because of rampant irresponsibility and wackko billing systems. But the actual care is top notch. The rest of the world hears about "high infant mortality" but we walk through hospitals where they regularly save 1 and 2 pound pre-mature babies that would die elsewhere and never having been recorded as a "live birth". This sort of pre-infant care turns out to be very expensive and it runs up all of our cost averages. But quite frankly, absolutely no one is interested in average care.

I don't know where "here" is but €500/year seems pretty in inexpensive. I imagine that is on top of your normal taxes.

Without making an specific accusations, I do want to point out something that you can only learn through experiences. There is a dramatic difference between "good" care and between "great" care. All doctors are not alike.

For example, my Aunt is 95 years old, and has a blood disease. She was expected to die 5 years ago. However, she so vibrant and active that her doctor thought he should put some extra effort in her treatment. She got blood transfusions almost twice a week for several years. She still gets them every couple of months now. However, if she needs help when her particular doctor is on vacation, the other doctor's best medical judgement is to treat her very basically. She is 95 years old, they think. Why waste good blood! This cause her to spiral downhill until her doctor comes back and treats her properly. Then in less than a day she is up walking and out in the world again. Keep in mind, both of these "standards of care" come from within the same hospital and are provided using standard government medicare insurance for the elderly. She does not pay extra to be treated properly.

I can give you other personal examples of a father in law receiving "good" care in two different local hospitals while remaining near death, but then being "life flighted" three states over to a noted hospital for "optimal" care. He recovered in less than a day.

My own father is 10 years past a stroke and 5 years past colon cancer. You would never know to look at him. He went to the cancer research hospital where they invent the drugs and treatment processes. His doctor sees 500+ colon cancer patients a year. The practical reality is a doctor who sees 5 colon cancer cases a career may still be a good doctor. But there are "better" doctors, and there are clearly "best" doctors for any given medical problem. Again this was medicare, not out of pocket premium care.

I learned this problem most clearly by sitting on a jury. A guy was injured an a car accident. He broke his leg. His doctor testified that it was the most complication leg operation he'd ever had to do. There were multiple screws and pins. It was a horrific injury and this poor gentleman would be on crutches and in constant pain for the rest of his life. The doctor seemed competent and serious.

Then the defense asked another doctor to testify, he said "My name is... I'm the head of sports medicine for...". They asked him if he had seen an injury like this before. He said, "Yes, I do 300 of those a years. It is very common in high school and professional sports." And when they asked him what was the expected recovery rate was, "100%" he said. He was dead serious. I really felt bad for the guy who went to a "good" doctor when he really needed to go to the "best" doctor. And this was just for a broken leg!

Most people know instinctively that you should hire the "best" lawyer you can find. After all, your freedom may be at stake.
Doctoring they think, "is a noble profession" I can trust them, they all look out for my best interests. After all, it's not like I'm risking my freedom, it's only my life.

Canadians are certainly an interesting breed.

There are really only two conceptually different types of public health care system.

1) Everyone is entitled to a certain level of care paid for by the government. Those who want better care can pay for it on their own.
2) Everyone is entitled to a certain level of care paid for by the government. No one is allowed to purchase better care than that received by every other person.

The last I checked, Canada was in the second category. They are also very proud of the equality of their concept. I find Canadians some of the most civil people on the planet. I don't find your statistics very shocking. It is clear most Canadians would rather wait in line out of respect for civil equality, than sacrifice that principle even if the additional cost for immediate service was trivial to them.

I, however, am a whiny bastard. When I get sick, if I can pay extra to get treated, then get back to bed... Well fuck stoicism.

----

(Edit) I wonder if there are any Canadian bitcoin users? I would be shocked to find even one who thought their Loonie currency should be abandoned just because it was mandated by fiat.

OMFG! You heartless bastard! (sarcasm)

I pretty sure you just did something a kin to uttering the name of the lord aloud. And you did in public for all to see! Zeus will surely strike you down with his thunderbolt!

Yes, I know that is the wrong god, but all those supernatural deities tend to stick together. They're like evil bankers or CEOs but they don't even have to answer to stock holders.

You mean in socialism some people don't have cars? That is pretty rare in the US. Even people without health insurance have cars. (true sarcasm)



This is pretty clear to everyone. Except perhaps for our president who decided that making it the employer's problem means he doesn't have to make it his problem.



I'm quite certain you will find every American is in favor of improving our health care system. The politicians however keep proposing systems that make, the already clear, problems much worse. We tend to be against that.

I mean certainly we shouldn't be messing in other nation's politics. People should be allowed to form what ever kind of government they want. And if they should happen to want a kind of government that, in retrospect, ends up sucking, well then we should all learn from their mistake. If however it turns out to be genius, there is no law against copying productive social structures.


I think we are arguing on the same side. I'm saying no one should be forced to trade on either side of the table. If Greece sets out to keep devaluing their new Drachma, no one should be forced to trade in or hold Drachma against their will. Even if they are evil banks or corporations. If South American countries don't want to sell us oranges, bananas or even oil, we shouldn't force them to.

But if a legitimately recognized national government says, "Bribes are how we do business!" Then that is between the people and their corrupt government. I don't feel the need to overthrow corrupt foreign governments just because I want to eat bananas. If they say the price is 30 cents per pound plus bribes, then that is what the market price is.

Furthermore, I don't feel the necessity to hamstring companies trying to optimize a service for me (like bringing me bananas), by saying they can not compete to the best of their abilities. International trade is the big leagues. If two parties want to make a deal, they each negotiation the best deal they can. Otherwise, there is no deal to be had. Neither side *must* trade if the deal goes against their best interest.

So if you are saying that the best thing we (as non-citizens of the target countries) can do is leave countries (and their citizens) alone to work out their own problems. To educate themselves in the ways of productivity and decide on their own rules for civility among themselves, I couldn't agree more.

No I actually mean *me* "Red", a random American. I've never worked in banking, or taking over foreign governments. Nor do I want to.